To Atone for Madness
by Dark and Chaotic
Summary: Mercy is a human luxury...and responsibility. Jack Frost meets a girl that is more of a monster than human. Kitsune!Fic, based on various folklore, most notably Japanese one. Rated M: Gore, violence, themes, unsuitable for children and those weak at heart. Written in snipets and short scenes.


_**Summary: **_Mercy is a human luxury...and responsibility. Mercy is like forgiveness and it is in human nature to give. She had been given and with time she learned to give. All that was left was the emptiness and the sealed cage. And then she meets Jack Frost. And then, a tiny spark of hope appeared, that she may yet learn how to be human again.

_**A/N: This is a dark fic that questions the many sides of human nature and what it truly means to be human. Pairings will be Pitch/OC with Jack Frost/OC FRIENDSHIP. Unlike my other work, this story will not be so much separated into chapters, as much as snipets and scenes, sometimes even flashbacks from events. There are some cross-overish elements, but they are mostly obscure enough to be ignored as such. Enjoy :)**_

She appeared one day from the darkness of a narrow dead-end alley. It took him a while to notice her, but when he did, he realised that she didn't really fit into what was supposed to be the everyday life of Burgess. Like many things, Jack Frost did not concern himself with her, at least at first.

Like many things, he steadily started to notice stuff about her, like her usual haunts, and how she wore what appeared to be men's clothing. She was tall, but she walked slightly hunched over, the hoodie and the hat underneath obscuring most of her face. On top of the hoodie, she wore a thick brown leather jacket that was at least four sizes too big. Her jeans were also too big seemed too big. She wore dark sneakers on her feet, which he found peculiar, as those were not the best option for one's feet in the middle of February.

She was unnervingly still and silent, not unlike a predator. Sometimes he could see her observing the children playing in the park with a calm, blank look on her face. Sometimes, when the light was just right, he'd notice a set of very thin and pale lines, perhaps scars, on each cheek.

She was not bothered by the cold, that much he had noticed. He rarely saw her out at night, though he supposed that even if she had been out and about, he'd probably wouldn't be able to find her even if he tried really hard.

She was pretty and she was young, perhaps still a teenager. At least that was what he could discern from her face the few times he had come closer to observe her. Jack had never heard her speak and he wondered if she was mute or if she simply chose not to speak. She did not have any friends, nor did she comunicate in anyway with anybody.

Perhaps she had run away from home? He really had no idea. There was this strange weariness in her eyes that at times sent shivers down his spine. She seemed empty and at times she wasn't really all that there, perhaps lost in thought, or perhaps simply lost on the road of life.

She was strange.

**888**

It was a very cold night, and the moon was full. The only reason that Jack actually saw her during night time, was because he was flying over the rooftops of Burgess. He had never seen her at night before and he closed in. The hat was gone, but her hoodie was still pulled over her head. Every now and then she crouched and touched the ground. There had been fresh snowfall not from several hours ago. She seemed to be looking for something, following some sort of tracks he could not see.

Jack followed her as she swiftly and utterly silently made her way towards a more run down part of Burgess, where there had been this abandoned warehouse. The doors were slightly opened and he finally noticed some sort of footsteps. It seemed as if something had been dragged. There was a muffled scream.

For the first time, he heard some sort of noise, a sound, from her. She had sharply taken breath through her nostrils. She stilled herself, motionless like a statue.

For the first time, Jack noted that the lines on her face seemed somewhat darker and more visible.

For the first time, he saw her eyes change color from carribean blue to a bright, crimson red, her pupils now rapidly dilatating slits.

By the time he blinked in shock, she had already rushed into the warehouse, with a swiftness unseen in humans.

With horror, Jack realized she must've had some sort of prey in the warehouse. He followed her inside.

**888**

Blood.

Arousal.

Fear.

Terror.

Killer intent.

Aggression.

Man and a woman.

The man was older. Perhaps in his forties. Smoker. He smelt of machine oil and fuel. Perhaps a mechanic, or someone who worked around vehicles.

The woman was younger. Perhaps in her twenties. She smelled fresh and healthy. She was weak though. There was a lot of fear and terror in the area. She hadn't put up much of a struggle. There was submission. It was a sickeningly sweet aroma and she hated it.

She didn't like weak.

But she hated bullies more.

The assault had occured five minutes prior to her arriving at this location. It was her instinct that forced her to immediately act upon her discovery. Anything out of its simple order unsettled her and she needed the peace and quiet. She needed the lack of stress. The scents in the air made it hard to concentrate. Her blood boiled in her veins, the urge to kill rapidly rising. Her heartbeat remained the same and it was by sheer force of will that she did not rip the streets asunder with the force of her pursuit.

The man had used a vehicle to get to the warehouse, but the scents of both of them were strong and easy to follow, especially after the fresh snowfall.

The scent of arousal was getting more potent in the air as she approached the warehouse. This man was not from Burgess. The woman's scent, however, was local.

There was a muffled scream, and she could hear the tell-tale rip of clothing.

_Wretched mongrels get the leash._

She really hated bullies. She really hated when people abused their power and abused others with it.

She entered the warehouse. It took her 2.5 seconds to grab the taller and seemingly stronger than her man by the back of his jacket and throw him to the other side of warehouse. There was that deliciously crunchy sound of bones breaking and she approached him slowly, while the woman fell to her knees in a terrified stupor.

Apparently he had broken some bones in one ankle, as he was still capable of turning around and pulling a knife. She paid him no heed, save for absently noting having higher than normal resilience for the force of her throw. Possibly a higher pain threshold by the looks of things as well. She grabbed him by the jacket and effortlessly pulled him to his feet, intending to throw him again, perhaps with slightly greater force.

She blinked, large red globes turning downwards. There was his knife imbedded underneath her left breast. She looked back at the man she held in her hand, confusion evident on her face. Why would he stab her when it was rather futile. The wound would heal as soon as she removed the knife from herself.

The man's smugness swiftly and fluidly turned into terror as she did not react to him stabbing her. Her grip on him was unwavering, his feet dangling in the air.

"M-monster!" she heard him rasp out just before she threw him to the ground.

She walked over to him and crouched. He would've probably screamed by now, had he not landed on his back, sapping him from his breath. Almost by habbit, she raised her hand, either to rip his heart out through his chest, or to render his head from his neck.

She blinked, finally actually seeing him before her. He wasn't a target per se. Not really a threat either. It took her good two minutes to convince herself that he was indeed human, if only a pathetically weak and particularly disgusting. He was less that the dirt she walked upon and she really hated wasting her time on rabble such as this. Her Master had always told her to value time and punctuality, and if there had been one thing she had inherited from him during the long years of her..._apprenticemanship, _was his particular dislike for wasting time and his fondness of punctuality.

With a scowl she stood up.

She blinked and looked down again. There was blood everywhere, on her front and on the floor and it kept flowing. She pulled out the knife and tossed it aside. She had forgotten about that little thing, really. Pain wasn't something that she didn't feel, but when one a particularly potent healing factor, over the years it had become something that she ignored on principle. She had noted that her opponents would usually be terrified or, at the very least, disturbed by her total lack of acknowledgement to her wounds. She usually lost limbs that way, but she'd either reattach them or grow new ones.

By the time the knife clinked on the floor somewhere at the back of the warehouse, her stab-wound had already healed. She'd have to find new clothes now from somewhere. Probably from the local stores. For now, however, an illusion would do.

She didn't bother to even turn towards the young woman. With a small twitch of a finger, another illusion was cast, and the woman slumped unconscious. She'd wake up some 20 to 30 seconds later, the events that transpired nothing more than a jumbled mess of images.

**888**

Jack Frost rarely remembered feeling so utterly terrified in his 300 or so years of existence. When the woman had crouched by that bad man, it had been as if a wave of ...of _something _had slammed into him and his heart had gone all the way up into his throat and he couldn't breathe. It was like a feeling of impending doom, of an imminent demise . Of certain death.

And then, just as it had come, it was gone, disappearing and leaving him trembling, knees threatening to give in, were it not for his staff to lean on.

There was blood pouring everywhere from her.

And then the blood on her was gone.

The poor woman suddenly fell unconscious on the ground.

Jack was certain some form of magic was afoot.

He followed the terrifying creature. He wasn't sure if she was even human at all. However, she had saved a life, and spared another. He needed answers. He needed to know who she was. He followed her.

**888**

He had appeared one day from thin air, right next to her. It had taken her a while to notice him, but not because of lack of trying. She never missed anything. She had been trained to utilise her senses as efficiently as possible, and she had some very good senses.

Her sight was more capable than that of a human, especially in the dark. It was not, however, as good as a cat's or an owl's. It was more akin to a canine's, which was kind of natural really, considering her... circumstances.

Her hearing was very good and extremely acute. She was also very sensitive to vibrations and the slightest changes to wind currents, for example. Her strongest senses, however, were her sense of smell and taste. They were strong enough for her to be able to register things that weren't exactly strictly part of the physical plane of existence. Truth and lies, emotions, even things as obscure as te various types of magic that still lingered in this dimension.

She was aware for sometime she was being watched, and it had taken her a lot of willpower to not rip Burgess apart just to calm her intense feeling of paranoia. Usually when she felt watched, the feeling would be accompanied by the fresh smell of pines and ice, of the breeze that flew across the highest mountain peaks. It was not an uncommon scent, as Burgess itself was surrounded predominantly with pines and mountain peaks, however it became more potent when she felt beeing watched.

She started noting down the strange patterns of the winds, the frost that gently creeped up, the small things that she connected with the proper amount of observation.

The first time she had actually seen Jack Frost, she had to process a fact that her stalker was actually a scrawny looking teen with his big, bright blue eyes staring at her.

**888**

She almost looked timid, standing there by the tree, he thought.

"Hi, I'm Jack Frost."

She could see him now, and yet, somehow, that did not bring the joy and excitement he expected to feel for the occasion to finally be seen by somebody.

For some reason relief had washed over her to the point where even he could see the sudden lack of tenseness in her shoulders. For a while she just looked at him, and he was starting to feel uncomfortable. He was not very good with her expressions, or the usual lack of such, so he had no idea whether or not she'd attack him suddenly or she'd simply stand there, staring at him.

"Uh..."

She seemed startled as he spoke again, as if suddenly remembering that she was there too. It was a strange and a sad sight to see her snap back to reality like that.

"Hello."

She finally spoke, her voice raspy with obvious disuse, but still very soft and pleasant, with a calm note to it, even though her eyes showed anything but calm.

**888**

She did not remember her name or did not care for it. Despite his initial fear that she'd suddenly attack him, he soon came to realise that she was not some cold and calculating predator of a monster, thought at time she truly did seem as such. She was simply lacking. Like an empty bottle, after pouring out all the water from it.

Over time he had learned the reason she spent so much time observing people, was because she wanted to be like them. She had tried to explain more then once why, but her sentences were sometimes jumbled up with various quotes and references to things and people, most of which were lost on him. She seemed to have trouble expressing herself, not for lack of mental ability, but rather from having been so long on her own.

"Alone."she had said once."Completely alone. The void is terrible."

He really had no idea what this void was and if she had been speaking literally or yet again was referring to something unknown to him.

Apparently she did not feel the cold because she expelled some sort of energy to keep her warm. She had not elaborated on what kind of energy or magic she was using. It was one of those things that she refused to tell because they were not to be shared lightly. A trade secret or some such thing, she had told him.

Over time, she had taken to him like fish to water. They'd spend the majority of his stay in Burgess together, and she'd listen about the things he had been doing, the sights he had seen.

It was nice to have a friend.

**888**

She looked human, but she clearly wasn't. She was also far more older than she looked, though whether or not she was older than him, he had no idea. She was not like the other spirits, either, as she was tangible to humans.

And yet, they very rarely noticed her. When he had asked her why, she'd told him that she did not want to be seen and that she preferred herself hidden and away from attention.

"The best way to hide is in plain sight. Become something that one does not care for, like the background."

Over time he noticed that when she spoke with him, she'd straighten her back and not slouch when she would walk. He also found outthat she kept her blond hair neatly braided and in her hoodie, away from harm's way.

**888**

She had claws. Usually her nails seemed normal and human, neatly trimmed and clear. When she was angry or excited (usually when hunting or chasing him through the woods as he'd fly ahead), they'd grow longer and sharper and would take on a caramel brown tint. They were very sharp and could cut through stone, as well as effortlessly rend flesh apart.

**888**

She enjoyed having fun in the snow. At first she had been hesitant and with that tell tale distant look in her eyes, as if trying to remember and understand the purpose of this exercise. It had been several hours and some heavy snowball fighting later thathe had heard her laugh for the first time.

**888**

She was knew a lot about surviving in the wilds and she was more than a capable hunter. Jack also noted that her favourite game happened to be hares. She could skin one of those critters in less than three minutes.

She was fond of furs.

**888**

Jack had taken to calling her Kitty Cat, because of the lines of her cheeks that reminded him of whiskers. She would smile at him brightly, almost preening at his attention.

**888**

Her eyes rarely turned to red nowadays, but she still had a long way to go when it came to r_egaining her lost humanity_, as she put it. Her speech was less irregular and her thoughts were more ordered. She had taken to teaching him math and various physical laws. She would make a game of it, or would show him practical uses of these laws of Physics. Usually via pranks.

She was very clever and imaginative when it came to pranks and tricks. She knew many tricks, most of which were less than savory, like picking locks and pockets, for example. She was very good at throwing things at a great distance and she always hit her mark.

**888**

She did interesting things with whatever form of magic she had. She called most of what she did illusions or just tricks. There was more to that, but he had learned not to push her. She'd tell him when he was ready to learn.

**888**

One day Jack decided it was ok to ask her what she was exactly. She scowled and did not answer, mostly because she did not how to answer exactly.

**888**

His friend Kitty Cat was a very well read person. She liked to read books in the library at night, and sometimes she'd read to him outloud as he rested his head in her lap and as she stroked his snowy white hair. She told him she'd get him to read on his own very soon, but he told her he preferred her reading to him.

**888**

It was February once again and it had been almost a year since they had met. She gave him a racelet crafted by her. It was very intricate, made mostly of bronze, with nine carefully decorated red stones embeded into its bronze plates.

She told him that he was a precious person and that she would protect him no matter what. Like a little brother, she had told him, ruffling his hair affectionately. He had promptly turned red from pleased embarassment.

It was nice to have someone to call family.

**888**

His big sister Kitty Cat was older than him. She had no idea how old she was exactly, because she did not remember much. She had told him that she did not want to remember, because it hurt.

**888**

Kitty figured she should be around at least 900, because she had nine tails. At least she had heard some such information, but then again she might be wrong, because she was never certain about things that weren't at least triple checked.

Jack was surprised about her having nine tails, because he had never really seen even a single one.

**888**

"Your form is lousy." she tells him seriously, referring to his practically non-existent fighting skills.

She swiftly takes his staff, bonking him on the head with it, before throwing it back to him and casually walking away. Jack blinks and then chases after her, trying to hit her with a snowball. But unlike when they usually have snowball fights, he is unable to hit her even once, and she has her back to him the entire time.

By the end of the week, he gives up, and she patiently starts to teach him how to effectively use his staff.

Jack notes she takes great pleasure in teaching him and that she enjoys passing on her knowledge. He also grudgingly accepts the fact that for being 300 or so years old, he barely has any fighting ability.

**888**

It is two years since they have first met. Kitty tells him she is a Kitsune. When Jack doesn't really comprehend what a Kitsune is, she clarifies simply with "A type of Fox spirit." Jack notes her answer is of the clinically simple kind, the type she used when she omitted facts. The Winter spirit is getting better at understanding her little word games and hidden messages.

**888**

Kitty is yet to find herself a proper and permanent home. When Jack asked her about it, she told him that she did not want to grab the humans' attention by leaving signs of her presence.

Kitty is very weary of humans, especially the adult ones. She is, however, very fond of children. There is a strange sadness to her whenever she watches them play, a longing, sorrowful look in her eyes. Jack does not speak of it, but he suspects she may have lost someone young and closer to her.

**888**

Kitty is very fond of fire.

Jack is not.


End file.
